Tactical Medicine (TM) is a discipline that specializes in the emergency medical support and services required to support the mental and physical health and the overall safety of law enforcement and military special operations (i.e., SWAT) personnel during critical incidents and training.
AMRI BLOG
A 62-year old male is admitted through the Emergency Department (ED) with a fifty-hour history of worsening sore throat, cough, and increased work of breathing.
A 69-year old male is brought into your department in acute respiratory distress. He is breathing 56 times per minute, using all of his accessory muscles of respiration. His skin is cold and moist. His BP is 188/110, with sinus tachycardia at a rate of 152/minute. His S02 = 70% per pulse-oximeter. He has bilateral inspiratory crackles in all lung fields and his wife states he has been “battling heart failure” for several years.
As we all know, tissue damage from hypoxic ischemic injury during a heart attack leads to ongoing problems, like congestive heart failure. Once heart muscle is damaged, neighboring healthy tissue will become damaged too, due to the “bystander effect.” This can turn what might be relatively minor heart damage into major, life-threatening damage. So the question becomes: is it possible to stop this “bystander effect” in its tracks?